Week 1 in Barcelona

Hello Everyone!!!!

 

How are all of you? Things here in Barcelona are going well so far. We really have a huge area (population wise)...and it is a little bit intimidating. We have a gigantic ward and the church that we attend is the stake center and it seems bigger than pretty much most of the stake centers that we have there in the states....I am sure that is not true...it just seems like it after coming from our tiny little church in San Sebastian. 

 

So the greatest news of the week is that I absolutely love my companion. She is such a sweetheart! Her name is Hermana Robinson and she is from Gilbert, Arizona. She likes to run which is just a heaven sent for me and we get along just great so far. There are so many things I admire about her and I am really grateful that I will likely get to have her for 2 transfers since this next transfer is during Christmas and she only has one transfer in the area anyways. 

 

We definitely are going to have to do a lot of finding this week and in the coming weeks because we have basically no investigators, because they just baptized the investigators that they had before I got here. But we have already found a couple people this week. The person that I would love for you all to keep in your prayers is named Alberto. He is from here in Barcelona and he actually came to us. He met with the missionaries a few years ago but still wasn´t ready to change. He really has the desires now to change, but he has a lot of obstacles that he is going to have to overcome and he is going to need all the strength he can muster to overcome his challenges. So keep him in your prayers. We also found another girl whose name is Elizabeth. She just showed up at church on Sunday and it turns out that a member invited her to come a few months ago and she finally decided to come, even though her friend was not there and is actually currently inactive. She is such a sweetheart and the ward got right in to fellowshipping her the moment that she walked in the door. She actually does not live in our area so the Elders are going to continue teaching her, but I hope to see the great things and change happening with her. 

 

We have been focusing a lot this week on visiting less-active members and trying to find all those that still live around here and there are many more to find. Many are just waiting for someone to reach out to them and show them that they care and that they haven´t been forgotten, by the members, or by God. I want to invite each of you to reach out to those you know that have gone inactive that may just be waiting for that invitation or that visit to show them that they are not forgotten and that they are important. We need them and our Heavenly Father needs them. Take that advice from Elder Ballards talk in the last conference...find a way each day that you can perform some small act of service for someone (member, less-active, or non-member). It may not seem like much in and of itself, but if we all do that everyday as members of the church, the effect on the world will be incredible and people will start to recognize that love of Christ through us. 

 

I love you all and will talk to you next week. 

 

Love,

Hermana Eyre

Week 18 in San Sebastian and transfer to Barcelona!

Hello everyone!!!!

 

What an incredibly fantastic week it has been!!! Saul got baptized on November 7th and was confirmed a member of the church on Sunday, November 11th. His baptismal service was so special and it meant the whole world to me to be able to see his baptism and confirmation before leaving my beautiful, most favorite area ever, of San Sebastian. Which brings me to the second part of my news. I got transferred. I am now serving in the Barcelona 1st ward. I have heard really great things about it and it will be interesting to be back in Barcelona again. This will likely be my last area unless something wierd happens. So I am excited to be in a ward that I have heard so many great things about. 

 

It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to all the people in San Sebastian. I definitely was sad to say goodbye to the people in Hospitalet when I left there, but it was nothing like it was to leave San Sebastian. Those people are like my family and I would be super sad to leave them even if I was going home to my own family. But I will get to go visit them when my family comes to pick me up before I go home. I enjoyed my time up there like nothing else and felt incredibly privileged to have seen all the miracles up there. There are so many things that I will miss about that place, not the least of which is the incredible scenery and the cold weather and the list just goes on and on. 

 

So Saul was confirmed on Sunday and the primary also had a primary program on Sunday that was just absolutely incredibly cute. It was a good note to end on. Seeing Saul get confirmed though just topped the cake. I got pretty teary-eyed and am so excited that their family can now start preparing to go to the temple!

There is no better way to leave an area and a wonderful time in your mission.

I don´t have much more to explain than that...I think the pictures will do most of the talking. So enjoy. 

 

Love you all and talk to you soon!

Hermana Eyre

Week 17 in San Sebastian

Hello everone!

 

This is likely my last week here in San Sebastian...at least it feels like I am going to be transferred this next week...but we will see. If that is the case, I am really sad to go because I love this area with all my heart! The people are fantastic as well as everything else. It will be a good week regardless though. Saul is still going to be baptized on Wednesday and we are just absolutely thrilled about that! It will be a really neat baptismal service because all his kids and his wife are going to participate in the program. He is incredibly prepared and is a perfect example to me of how Heavenly Father really does not need us in or to do his work. He is the one that touched Saul´s heart and he has made all the changes necessary to take this step of baptism. We just taught the lessons (even though he already knows everything because he has been an investigator for 6 years). This is God´s work and it will never be any different than that. 

 

I spent this last week in Bilbao on companion exchanges. It was a very long exchange, (5 days, which is very unusual) but I really had a good time and learned a lot. And my companion here in San Sebastian, Hermana Lichfield, totally knows the area and the ward here well enough to show it to the next missionary that is going to come up here. We have actually been hoping that they will send another companionship up here to help with all the work. While we don´t have tons of investigators right now, the ward is just overflowing of less-active members that we are trying to visit and are more than willing to meet with us, but we just don´t have sufficient time to meet with all of them. 

 

The weather has still been changing here quite drastically. It was pretty cold and we thought we were headed into winter, but then this whole last week it was quite warm and it just barely started cooling off again. The leaves here are starting to change finally...but it is not quite the same as Utah. We were grateful for the change of daylight savings, because now we are not running in the complete dark. 

 

Anyways...enough of my rambling. Things are going well here and I am looking forward to seeing what the next transfer is going to bring me. Thank you all for the great support that I receive from you. You all mean the world to me and everything that I hear from each of you just keeps me going out here. This is the most important work and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to be out here and participating in it. If any of you reading this have ever wanted to serve and are on the fence about it...come out and do it! You will never regret it!

 

I love you all!

Talk to you next week!

 

Love,

Hermana Eyre